Challenger Jamie Walsh declares victory in tight Luzerne County state House primary

The challenger in a tight Republican primary for  Luzerne County’s 117th District state House seat has declared victory over state Rep. Mike Cabell even as appeals before the state Supreme Court are pending.

Jamie Walsh holds a five-vote lead over incumbent Cabell, according to unofficial Luzerne County election results. That’s despite a July 3 Commonwealth Court rejecting Walsh’s appeal to disqualify six mail-in ballots cast in the April 23 primary.

On July 2, Cabell also lost a Commonwealth Court appeal seeking an order to have election officials count any write-in votes that may have been cast for him.

Both candidates have asked the state Supreme Court to hear appeals of their respective unfavorable Commonwealth Court rulings.

With no Democratic candidate for the seat, Walsh is the presumptive winner unless the Supreme Court decides to take one or both of the appeals and the outcomes change the vote count.

Cabell was elected in 2022 after becoming involved with politics during an unsuccessful bid for Luzerne County commissioner in 2015. He describes himself as an entrepreneur who founded and later sold a successful behavioral health company. As a lawmaker, Cabell has been a proponent of voter ID, property tax relief and parental choice in education.

Walsh is a co-founder and president of Citizens Advisory of Pennsylvania, which his campaign website describes as an organization that helps parents fight for rights and address issues in school districts across the state. In addition to school choice, Walsh said free speech, gun rights, property tax reform, election integrity, and support for small businesses are among his priorities if elected.

Walsh declared victory on Friday, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, after the Luzerne County Board of Elections processed 12 provisional ballots. The count happened after Walsh’s attorney dropped challenges over stickers on the external envelopes and other irregularities.

The provisional ballot tally added seven votes to the three-vote lead Walsh already held, while Cabell picked up five votes. The vote tally stands at 4,735 for Walsh to 4,730 for Cabell, according to the unofficial results. 

Gregory Teufel, who represented Walsh in the ballot challenges, said it’s unlikely that the pending appeals would result in changes to the outcome. If Walsh is successful in his effort to have the six mail-in ballots disqualified, Cabell would lose four votes while Walsh would lose two.

The Supreme Court has discretion over whether it will hear the case, Teufel said. 

Teufel said that while the untallied write-in votes could include enough to put Cabell in the lead, his appeal is an “extremely unlikely hail mary pass.” State election law is clear that write-in votes for candidates whose names are on the ballot cannot be counted, Teufel said.